Jen:  This is the PKF Texas Entrepreneur’s Playbook.  I’m Jen Lemanski, this week’s guest host, and I’m here with Chris Hatten and Martin Euson, two of our directors on our Transaction Advisory Services team, Martin is on the tax side, Chris is on the audit side; guys welcome to The Playbook.

Both:  Thank you for having us.

Jen:  So Transaction Advisory Services sounds interesting.  What is it and what are your roles on the team?

Martin:  Jen Transaction Advisory Services is a PKF service offering or platform if you will, by which we advise and help our clients, whether those be individuals, businesses or private equity firms.  Helping them and advising them to make more informed decisions, better decisions, strategic decisions when it comes to managing their capital and executing their transactions.

Jen:  Okay, now Chris I know you have the Certified Mergers and Acquisitions Advisor credential, how does that play in?

Chris:  Well I think that was originally designed to help bridge the gap between the buyers, the sellers, as well as the activity that we do.  Even though, for example, private equity companies speak in a numbers language they have different terminology than what accountants do; we speak gap, they speak finance.  And so we’re looking for a way to kind of bridge that gap a little bit to help facilitate the transactions.

Jen:  So from the audit side and then Martin on the tax side who would use these services?

Martin:  I would say anybody who is interested, whether you’re talking individuals or businesses, who would be interested in making an acquisition, selling a company.  There’s also the broader application of transaction advisory services when we’re talking in terms of restructuring a business, whether that means reducing the number of legal entities involved or whether that means embarking on initial public offering.

Jen:  Now would it be the owners, would it be the private equity guys?  Who would we reach out to to talk to about these types of things?

Chris:  It could be both because we can assist from the buy side or the sell side.  So it could be a business owner who is needing assistance getting ready for a transaction or it could be a private equity company, a strategic buyer who’s looking to make an acquisition and needs somebody to go ahead and do something similar to a due diligence or quality of earnings report.

Jen:  Perfect, sounds like we need to get you guys in front of some folks.

Chris:  We can do that.

Jen:  All right, we’ll get you back to talk a little bit more, thanks.  To learn more about how we can assist you with potential transactions visit PKFTexas.com/transactionadvisoryservices.  This has been another Thought Leader production brought to you by PKF Texas The Entrepreneur’s Playbook.